


imperante

by armethaumaturgy



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternative Universe - Kingdom, Assassination Attempt(s), Blanche uses she/her but shes a man, Emperor Iphi, M/M, Muteness, Non-Human Genitalia, Porn With Plot, Riding, Thief Blanche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24535486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armethaumaturgy/pseuds/armethaumaturgy
Summary: According to her map, the treasury should be just a few hallways down, and she needs to take the stairwell right of the throne room. The guards will be changing within the bell, so she had better hurry.She reaches the hallways housing the throne room and slows down, eyes rowing the walls in search of the stairwell she needs. However, what she finds instead is a sight for the ages.The throne room doorway, taller than her by multiples and gilded with gold, hangs open, a bloody trail leading up to it from within the room. And at its end, a figure face-down in the very same puddle, one of the arms bent at a weird angle against the wood.It’s… their emperor.
Relationships: Warrior of Light/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	imperante

**Author's Note:**

> were at it again lads  
> happy pride

Usually, when the night falls and the sun fades behind the horizon, everything gets covered in darkness, details get lost in shadows, air getting colder by the minute.

But not the palace. It is a grandiose place, that much Blanche could discern even coming from the servant's garden entrance. It would be obvious even had she not known what the structure looks like from outside; spires tall enough to touch the heavens, walls of bright sandstone, foliage reminiscing of an abandoned fort, trimmed in just the right ways to make it seem a piece of the building.

And the inside did not lack it either. The hallways she snuck through had pedestals with tall vases, there were more pots hung underneath portraits and landscapes on the walls, and yet more pottery and greenery behind each and every corner she rounded.

The map she had stolen after a month's planning she had memorized, thinking all the lanterns would get blown out after nightfall, but oh, how wrong she had been. Each of them burns bright with warm light, and if she were paying any closer attention to them than 'twelve be blessed, I can check it if need be,' she'd notice they were positioned so carefully that she would never damage any of the greenery, no matter which way they could fall or be thrown.

According to her map, the treasury should be just a few hallways down, and she needs to take the stairwell right of the throne room. The guards will be changing within the bell, so she had better hurry.

Something slams, the reverberation of its noise making her stop dead in her tracks, hiding in the shadow of one of the floral pedestals. Footsteps thud across the marble flooring, and then everything falls silent again. She lets out the breath she didn’t notice she had held. 

With a dagger in one hand and the map bunched in the other, she hurries, plush carpets in the middle of long-winded hallways silencing her already quiet steps.

She reaches the hallways housing the throne room and slows down, eyes rowing the walls in search of the stairwell she needs. However, what she finds instead is a sight for the ages.

The throne room doorway, taller than her by multiples and gilded with gold, hangs open, a bloody trail leading up to it from within the room. And at its end, a figure face-down in the very same puddle, one of the arms bent at a weird angle against the wood.

It’s… their emperor.

She blanches, fingers white around her items, as she stalks toward him. His toga is torn and hanging off in tatters, and when she twists him around to take account of the damages, she shakes. There are stab wounds — so many of them, it’s a wonder he’s still breathing, as shallow as he is. He’s hot to the touch, and she scrambles, unsure which wound to apply pressure to first. 

The biggest one seems to be at the side of his gut, almost burning her as she puts her weight onto it. She realizes, belatedly, that the heat must be coming from his magic, trying to knit his flesh back together.

She debates.

She should call out, get him some _help_. But if she did, she would immediately get detained as a suspect, maybe even executed on the spot.

The emperor’s face scrunches up as she thinks, and he lets out the smallest of sounds. His expression keeps wavering between fury and agony, never knowing which one to stop on. 

It makes her mind up for her.

_‘Twelve fuck me for still having a moral bone in me.’_

“Guards!!” she shouts, “Your fuckin’ emperor’s bleedin’ out here!” 

Like clockwork, knight-guards come pouring in from their posts and seeing her atop their emperor, one tackles her off and pins her hands above her head, shouting in her face questions she has no answers to.

_‘Twelve fuck me, indeed.’_

* * *

At least the holding cell isn’t so bad. They’ve even brought her breakfast (at least she thinks it was a breakfast, the ‘window’, if it could even be called that, lets in minimal light), though she thinks it was the kitchen staff grateful for her heroic act of saving the emperor.

He wasn’t a bad man.

Brash and aggressive, sure, but the kingdom has _thrived_ under his rule. Surrounding kingdoms feared them, and just as well they should. The trade flowed, and laws were passed with so few loopholes she has had trouble finding them. He’d even managed to wrangle the biggest black market in the capital under his thumb, and all of that within the three years he’d been on the throne.

His word was final. And his subjects loved him.

At least, the peasants and merchants, citizens who had been stuck at the bottom of the chain for generations, finally given a fair opportunity and laws that upheld their rights. There were fewer and fewer royal guards abusing their powers. If the emperor caught even the slightest of rumors, there were hearings each of them feared more than poverty.

“Is he fine?” she had asked the kitchen hand, as she took the small basket with bread and cut fruit.

She hadn’t realized how much she even _cared_ until the girl nodded. “The healers got to him in time. A minute more, they said… and his mana would’ve ran out.”

Blanche nods numbly, and the maid excuses herself with a slight bow, holding her skirt — oh, but did they all look nice in the palace. where did she get the coin for such a pretty dress to wear while _working_? — as she disappeared up the stairs.

The guard stationed at her cell made a big show of looking the other way while she ate, and she couldn’t say she didn’t appreciate it.

Over the course of the day, she had even struck up a conversation with him, or the other way would be more appropriate. At some point, he’d swapped with another, and even through the bars, she had managed to disrobe this new one over the course of a dozen rounds of a card game.

The cell was beginning to get boring; she had already come up with no less than four ways to escape it, but the guard’s words — ‘if you stay, I’m sure you will be rewarded.’ — had kept her there. She’d heard everyone wax poetry about how he treated them, but she couldn’t visualize it in her head. All she’d known the emperor for were his bloody crusades to keep their lands safe and his ruthless verdicts.

From far away, and from near, he almost seemed like two completely different people.

And so she had waited in the cell, getting a lunch from the same maid, and as the guard was about to be swapped again, the emperor walked in with the new guard in tow.

His hair made up again, braids and ponytail high up on his scalp, he almost looks as if he hadn’t been on the verge of death mere bells ago. His jewelry shines in the light of the licking flames of torches, eyes lined with golden paint, and his toga is new, though it hangs around his hips, torso wrapped in layers upon layers of bandages. 

Blanche will not admit she finds him attractive.

The guard outside her cell drops onto a knee, but no sooner is he being waved at to stand again. The guards are about to change their shifts, but he waves _both_ of them off. Exchanging a look and with a bow, they both disappear up the staircase. They are definitely not _leaving_ though, just hiding from sight.

The emperor steps towards the wall and pulls down the metal ring of keys. He’s unlocking her cell before she can process what’s happening. He raises his hands and motions with them, still in silence, and all she _can_ do is blink at him. Her mind feels blank.

He shakes his head and steps away, towards the stairs. As she’d expected, the guards are most definitely there, and one comes down at his emperor’s beckon.

He motions something again and the guard turns to her. “Emperor Apollo would like to speak with you,” he says. “He says he wishes to thank you for your… intervention last night.”

And then it hits her — he’s _signing_. 

“I—” she swallows, throat dry. “I can understand signs.”

The emperor nods, and the guard, though looking just a bit nervous, takes his leave again. Knowing now what she’s looking at and _for_ , she can make out most signs and fill in whatever she cannot. 

She’d never heard of the emperor being mute. 

“You did not have to save me last night,” he says. His face betrays nothing save for how perfectly the golden paint goes with his scales. “And yet you did. I am grateful.”

She chuckles. “Well… who wouldn’t wanna touch an open wound on a chest like yours?”

He pauses, and it hits her a second too late that she’s speaking to the _emperor_ , and he literally has her life in his hands. 

“I do not lie with women,” he signs, boring holes into her eyes with his own, “However, you deserve a reward. Name your price.”

Blanche licks her lips. She could have anything. She could have the whole treasury. If she held her tongue. Instead, she returns his unwavering gaze. “I am no woman.”

She can _see_ the gears in his mind turning for a split second, his eyes leaving her face in favor of the straps holding her garb upright, the furs hiding most of her body. Finally, he shifts onto the other foot (but Twelve, it must hurt to even stand) and asks, simply, “Is that your request, then?”

This has to be a sick joke on his part. She swallows hard again.

A thin sheen of perspiration is building on her skin, making her sleeves stick to her arms more than uncomfortably.

“I also want e’rything in yer treasury.”

The emperor’s head turns towards the guards’ table in the hallway. Its surface is covered in her possessions, daggers and knives and vials of poison spread out. Her stolen map and her mask are in the middle.

“The one on your map?” the emperor asks, shoulders rising and falling in a silent chuckle. “Consider it all yours.”

She starts shaking, a laugh bubbling up from her throat. Did she really just get a whole treasury worth of loot _and_ a night with the emperor? _What_ has her life come to?

“I will await you in my chambers at nightfall,” he says, turning on the heel of his embroidered sandals and striding out of the dungeons. Before he rounds the corner, however, he stops and turns back to her. “Do you know how to use those daggers of yours?”

“Like my own arms. Aye.”

“With your leave, I would like to arrange to… purchase your skills. Afterwards.” Having said, or signed, that, he disappears up the stairs.

The guards he’d left at the stairwell come down a moment later, looking bewildered, but clearly having received orders to usher her into the foyer. All her belongings are returned, and a maid comes to guide her to the baths.

‘You cannot present yourself before the emperor looking like that,’ she’d said.

So, as she lowers herself into the giant bath that had been prepared for her, she questions her own life yet again. A _treasury_ and a _night_ with the _emperor_. And whatever the hells he meant by buying her skills.

This time, she doesn’t want to wake up from whatever dream she must be having.

* * *

Somehow, the emperor’s chambers are exactly what she’d expected — lavish, large, and luxurious. He has a whole wing to himself, a library, an office, a bedroom, a bathroom with a bath bigger than she’d ever seen. 

The bed in the middle of his room beckons. It looks so soft that she could jump onto it and never wake up again, and she has to keep reminding herself they are going to be doing the furthest thing from sleep on it.

She had had an escort from the baths, but the maid had excused herself as soon as they'd arrived, and she can’t see the emperor anywhere, so, unsure of what to do, she just stands there, toeing the plush carpet absently.

She’s not sure how long she waits, stepping from foot to foot, feeling antsy in the clothes they’ve given her. She had never worn satin before, and the softness of it had doubled right back from being too comfortable to downright uncomfortable. 

Fortunately — or unfortunately? — it doesn’t take too long after that for the emperor to emerge from the adjacent bathroom, with nothing but a thin fabric draped over himself.

He motions towards the bed, and when she doesn’t move quick enough for his liking, steps towards her and, with a hand on her shoulder, pushes her backwards until the backs of her knees hit the edge of soft mattress and suddenly she’s sitting down, no, now she’s laying, and the emperor is on top of her.

The _emperor_.

On _top_ of her. 

Her breaths come a little quicker, a little more ragged now that the situation really hits her. This is happening. This wasn’t just some cruel joke on his part, he really intended to go through with this.

“I—”

His gaze snaps up towards her, hard and unwavering, and whatever she was about to say dies on her tongue. A moment later, seeing she will not speak anymore, he turns back towards his apparent target, her new shirt, and starts to unbutton it with precision and care that shouldn’t surprise her so much.

It falls open and his head cocks to the side just the tiniest bit (really, she only notices because it makes his ponytail sway side to side). She can’t read his expression when he looks up again.

“I really thought you were lying,” he signs, but doesn’t give her an opportunity to reply and runs a hand down the plane of her chest and stomach towards the laces of her breeches. Sure, the emperor is an Aura, towers over her by at least three heads’ height, but by the Twelve, is his hand _big_. And by the Twelve again, why is that making her cock get harder faster?

She has to swallow down her shame, blooming on her cheeks and across her neck, when his hand unlaces the fabric and brushes across her, already half-hard. One thing she can’t figure out is if his lack of expressions is disturbing or a turn on. He doesn’t seem concerned, or even to have taken notice of her internal turmoil, and just keeps up his crusade to, apparently, get her as hard as he can.

The shirt and pants take just a second of shimmying to be rid of, ending up in a heap somewhere to the side. It seems the emperor cares not for such things.

His hand wraps around her and pumps, and she sighs out, hips rising on their own. He covers her whole length fully with just that one hand, even after he coaxes her to full hardness. If she were of mind, and not already worrying of ending too soon and making an even bigger fool of herself, she’d ponder how he’s so good at this.

Whenever her eyes aren’t closed, there’s that gaze, just boring into her as if waiting for something, and noises keep pouring out of her, gasps and moans and she can’t stop herself. It’s perfect, it’s so good, it’s not enough.

“I— empe—“ she gasps out, nothing more than a whisper, but as soon as she does, his hand is gone along with its warmth, and she ends up slumping back against the pile of pillows behind her, shaking.

Emperor Apollo stands from the bed and moves to the vanity with such grace it should be banned by law. He picks a jar of something orange-ish from its surface and returns, tugging the fabric from his shoulder with his free hand.

The bandages are still wrapped tight around his chest, and now Blanche can smell whatever ointment the healers have permeated them with, as well as the telltale smell of afterrain air that accompanies magic. Her ears twitch and tail lashes against the covers, pupils blown wide as she watches him.

The very same fingers that have been touching her moments prior scoop out a generous heap of whatever is in the jar — viscous and translucent and _cold_ , she hisses as he circles her cock again, spreading the slick around, thumb rubbing it into the head of it and making her grind her teeth.

She can’t even get used to the touch before it’s gone again, only his thumb and forefinger left at the base as he straddles her waist, positioning himself above her. And when he sinks down, all in one smooth motion, oh, she swears she sees stars.

His insides are hot and tight, and her immediate worry about him not being prepared dissolve when the walls part and take her in like they were made for it, more slick mixing with that on her cock.

It hits her that he’d prepared himself before she had even arrived, and she just barely holds herself back from bucking up, managing to keep it just to her tail, which smacks repeatedly against the covers and his thigh.

He stays still, seated to the hilt, and the only way she knows he’s feeling anything at all is by his breathing, which deepens, a little more audible now. Blanche’s hands hesitate at his hips, but she needs the grounding and the covers are not cutting it anymore, already almost shredded through by her claws, but he says nothing as she grips him, hard keratin of his scales digging into her palms.

He starts moving just as smoothly as he’d dropped down, thighs on either side of her flexing as he goes back up, dropping down with his whole weight and squeezing down on her, and sure, she’s had good lays in her life, some _really_ good, but in that second, her mind couldn’t compare it to anything she’s felt before. Her claws dig into his skin, leaving angry red welts that are sure to stay there for days unless he decides to heal them. In the back of her mind, she secretly hopes he won’t, but even she, in that dark little corner of her mind, knows it’s a fool’s wish.

He rides her like his life depended on it, slick gathering between their bodies, and when she tears her eyes away from his chest and the bandages, she finally takes notice of his pouch, a large patch of scales where a penis usually would be, the slick she’d felt gathering on her skin coming from between them. 

Without thinking, one of her hands moves from his hip, fingers running over the pliant scales that almost part beneath her touch.

The emperor stills, pinning her down with his whole weight and gaze alike, and her ears pin themselves to her skull. She slows down, ever so gently pushing against the scales and watching in nothing short of awe as his eyelids flutter closed, exposing the gold painted on them. The scales give way and one of her fingers sinks into his pouch, the searing flesh constricting around the intrusion and she doesn’t move it, scared of hurting him with her claw and fucking this whole thing up.

Turns out she doesn’t even need to move it. A few slow, agonizing heartbeats later, something pushes against her finger and she pulls it out, biting at her bottom lip. The emperor starts up his rhythm again, visibly more flustered now as his cocks emerge from the pouch, accompanied by a gush of fluids that drench her abdomen.

It is tantalizing to see him like this, to say the least.

He holds her gaze, as soon as she’s done ogling the twin shafts, pink and leaking, and clenches around her. She moans, caught off guard, and he keeps doing it, obviously enjoying her reactions despite neither a quirk of his mouth nor a change in his look.

His hand comes down and fists his cocks, one finger between them, and he doesn’t even move it, lets himself fuck into it with each bounce, and Blanche’s gaze is trapped right back when it had begun.

She contemplates doing it for him, asking if she _could_ , but in the end decides against it, a small part of her, the rational one, that’s listing off all the ways this could go horribly bad even still squashing the idea at its root.

She resolves to enjoying the show, swallowing thickly between gasps and gulps of air. It is a wonder to her that she hadn’t finished yet, but as soon as she thinks that, she’s right on that cusp, her stomach tightening and toes digging into the mattress. Now she’s _really_ sure her nails will leave prints on his hips.

She tries to warn him, she really does, but all that comes out of her mouth is a choked, “I— Apo—“

Her eyes squeeze shut, unable to handle his gaze any longer, and she falls, the world itself narrowing down to this one room, this one bed, with her and the emperor only, nothing but their breathing mattering.

She floats in that darkness for Twelve knows how long, held up by the pillows and nothing more, and when she comes back to herself, it is to find the emperor with a wet cloth in hand, wiping white off his stomach.

She can just barely make out a few splotches on the bandages, as well as a handful of reddened spots, and she’s hit by guilt she dares not voice.

“You are free to use my chambers to clean yourself,” he signs.

Obediently, she slinks her way into the bathroom, where a bath awaits drawn, obviously prepared in advance, and then thinks of the poor servant who had to draw it, unknowing of what it would be used for.

She doesn’t linger, wipes herself down with one of the towels (so soft, too soft, why is everything of his so soft?) when she deems herself presentable enough. There are no clothes, so, shamefully covering herself with the towel, she makes her way back into the bedroom and collects the clothes she’d been given from the floor.

The emperor sits at the table under the window, dressed in his usual toga and, for all intents and purposes, not looking like he’d just been fucked in the slightest.

“You are back,” he observes when he takes note of her, taking his eyes off the document in front of him. “I would talk of the arrangement I have had in mind, with your leave.”

She nods numbly, only moving when he motions for her to sit. She does so, at the edge of the bed, still feeling the aftereffects of her orgasm, limbs just the tiniest bit weightless.

“I would like some people… disposed of.” He holds her gaze, and it is no less intense than it had been just minutes ago. It makes her shiver. “I can, of course, employ the use of my usual freelancer, but I feel you’ve earned the right for the choice.”

“Disposin’ of people’s my best skill,” she grins, a little crooked, but finally feeling a little more like herself than she had all day.

The emperor scoffs — and what is _that_ about? — but nods nevertheless. “Then the job is yours. I will write down the names of my former counsilmen.”

Freed from a cell, having fucked the emperor, and now with a job from the selfsame emperor to kill his traitors. If she’d thought yesterday had been a weird day, today had really taken the metaphorical cake.


End file.
